


Where There Are No Roads

by obsolete_theory (ersatzbeta)



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:02:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ersatzbeta/pseuds/obsolete_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One rainy night, Gojyo found a dying woman at the side of the road. He picked her up and brought her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a canon reboot, wherein Gojyo finds Kanan, not Hakkai. Things are a little different from there on out. This story is one of those cases where I was so interested in the original idea that I wrote it myself rather than wait for someone else to do it. I didn't do a lot of poking around to see if this has been done somewhere else; I got caught up in writing, instead. (If you've read a different Kanan-reboot somewhere, please let me know! I'd love to read it!)
> 
> Stanard warnings apply re: the Gonou/Kanan backstory stuff. I've tried to be oblique in referencing it, but Kanan's imprisonment is still a big formative part of how she reacts in the story.

Gojyo was half in the bag and walking home from the bar when he found her. It had been raining that evening, but now that it was really dark out, the rain had tapered off to a nasty drizzle.  
  
He found out later the drizzle had probably saved her life. If it'd been rain like before, she would have frozen to death before he even got close.  
  
He practically stumbled over her in the dark of the forest. He'd thought she was a rock, at first, except there'd never been a rock there before. Also, rocks didn't moan.  
  
"Hey," Gojyo said. "Can you hear me?"  
  
He didn't have much light, just the flame from his lighter and a slightly gray gloom from overhead, but it was enough when he knelt in the mud of the road. Shit. This was bad. He didn't know if she'd been knifed or clawed, but her insides were on the outside, and there wasn't much to keep them in if he stuck them back. He stood up again. She was going to die.  
  
Except she kept breathing, and her face was untouched. The water that gathered on her face made it look like she was crying.  
  
Gojyo took off his shirt and tied it tight around her middle after he did his best to put her back together. He lifted her up in his arms and carried her home. All the way, her warm breath moved, ever so gently, across his neck.  
  
  
  
  
It was a week gone from that night before she opened her eyes, though the doctor'd said not to hope even for that. Gojyo was really, really glad he didn't have to bury her out back.  
  
"Is this hell?" she said. "I'd imagined something different."  
  
The tone of her voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  
  
"Nope," said Gojyo.  
  
He pulled the bedside chair a little closer, and gorgeous, kind eyes focused on his.  
  
"You're in my house, in my bed," he said. "I found you out there, brought you back."  
  
"You could have let me die," she said. "It would have been the kind thing to do."  
  
Her eyes wandered to the ceiling then, and she said nothing more for a time.  
  
"It's amazing that you're alive," said Gojyo. "I put your guts back myself, but that didn't kill you, either. You're stronger than you think."  
  
"Not really," she said.  
  
Gojyo brought out a pack of cigarettes.  
  
"Doc said I couldn't smoke inside while you were asleep, but I'm smoking now," said Gojyo. "Hope you don't have a problem with it."  
  
"It's your home," the woman said.  
  
So Gojyo sat at her side and smoked, and she said nothing. And after, he got up and made some tea and brought her a cup. He could tell by the way she wrinkled her nose that it was shitty, but it was better than nothing. He didn't trust the water to be clean, and boiled water tasted like shit. Flat.  
  
He was a gentleman while she stayed in his bed. He slept on the couch, didn't bring anyone home. He played endless rounds of solitaire on the coffee table, but one of the legs went on it, and he lost an entire game on the floor.  
  
"Ah, shit," he said.  
  
"Is something wrong?" she said. "You've stopped shuffling the cards."  
  
And he felt guilty, because he'd been ignoring her this whole time, really. He'd pretended he didn't have a bedroom or a bed. He was still living like he was alone. Maybe he wasn't a gentleman after all. Gojyo snorted. No surprise there, really.  
  
"D'you wanna play?" he said.  
  
"It would pass the time," she said. "I think I know your ceiling by heart."  
  
And he kicked himself again, though he thought she'd meant it as a joke.  
  
Gojyo discovered the woman was unbelievable at poker.  
  
"I do this for a living and you're beating the pants off me," he said.  
  
"I'm afraid this sort of thing comes easily to me," she said. "It seems to run in the family."  
  
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, and Gojyo kept his questions to himself. Something bad had happened, obviously.  
  
"Another hand?" he said.  
  
"Please," she said.  
  
Another time, when he was tucking her back in after a staggering, painful trip to the bathroom, she looked up at him.  
  
"Gojyo," she said.  
  
"Yeah?" he said.  
  
"Your hair and eyes are so red," she said. "They remind me of blood."  
  
He froze. Women usually said it was like fire or wine or a fucking sunset. She'd cut to the heart of him. Gojyo hesitated, wondering if he should say anything. But what could he say? The truth, maybe.  
  
"Me too," he said. "Good night."  
  
  
As soon as the woman was on her feet again, she started to change Gojyo's house into a home. She cleaned _everything_. Gone was the dirty laundry, gone were the ancient beer cans, gone were the stains in the carpet that had been there when Gojyo had first moved in.  
  
His little p.o.s. house didn't exactly shine, because it was really too old and worn to do that, but it was so much better he almost couldn't remember what things were like before she'd come along. He was still sleeping on the couch, though.  
  
"You're the first woman I've ever lived with," he said. "And probably the last.  Are you going to keep sleeping in my bed, or should I get one for you, too?"  
  
The woman laughed until she cried, and Gojyo was worried she'd crack open the fresh new scars that twisted across her stomach. But she didn't let him touch her to check. As a compromise, she hiked up the hem of the old shirt she wore—his, since she didn't have any clothes to speak of and he wouldn't be caught dead shopping in the village for girl clothes—and she peeled back the bandages and he looked her over from three feet away.  
  
"You could have an infection and I wouldn't be able to see it from here," he said. "Could I just—"  
  
"No," she said.  
  
And she smoothed the bandages back in place over the ridges of scarring and went back to her housework.  
  
Gojyo thought about that moment a lot.  
  
  
She had nightmares. Bloodcurdling, screaming, sweating through the sheets nightmares. Sometimes she groaned in her bed and it was like Gojyo was back to square one, like her guts were hanging onto the ground again and he was going to have to drag her back from the brink. Her nightmares gave _him_ nightmares. So he stole into his bedroom and gave her arm—or whatever part of her was currently flailing—a stroke and he told her everything was going to be all right, even though he was pretty sure she would never be all right. Whatever'd brought her to his proverbial doorstep had been _bad_.  
  
This worked for a while until he woke her up, by accident, on one of those miserable nights where no one in the house really slept.  
  
At first, when her eyes blinked into his, he thought she was sleep-blind, not really awake and seeing him. He wondered who she saw instead.  
  
"Go—" she said. "Gojyo?"  
  
And then she saw he was touching her. She pulled back from him, like he was a dirty half-breed, unclean. She pulled back like he was poison.  
  
  
The next day, he hit the bar early, drank himself a tab in the day and fleeced the hell out of everyone in his path in the evening. The girls all took turns hanging off his arms and pouring, and he felt like a king until the last call. Then he just felt like crap. Supremely drunk, barely stumbling out of the bar crap.  
  
He tripped up the porch steps and opened the front door with scraped up hands. It didn't look like his house on the inside any more, but he knew his way to the bedroom well enough that he could do it blind drunk. Like now. Except he'd kind of forgotten about the woman until he actually climbed into the bed and she was there. Awake.  
  
"Sorry," he said. "'m drunk. I'll…go."  
  
She shook her head.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said. "For yesterday. Stay."  
  
He tried to get up and go anyway, but she held him by the shoulders until he quit trying. And then she rolled over, to the other side of the bed. It wasn't a big bed, a double, but the gap between them seemed huge. Gojyo went to sleep cold.  
  
He woke up warm. She'd curled around him sometime in the night. She was warm and soft and she smelled like his shampoo and a whiff of sweat, his, mostly, because she was tucked under one of his arms.  
  
His head was killing him. Gojyo disentangled himself as carefully as he could and went straight for the shower.  
  
They slept in his bed again that night. And the next.  
  
"It helps," she said. "It helps that I'm not alone."  
  
But he knew she was still scared, so he did his best to keep a distance between them, even though waking up to her against him in all the right places was driving him crazy, and the way she pulled away from him if she woke first made him even crazier.  
  
  
They never talked about how she'd come to be in his life. Hell. Even after all these months of her recovery, he didn't even know her name. He had never asked, because it was plain to him that she didn't want to share it.  
  
That's what he told the priest who showed up, too. She hadn't done anything wrong under his roof, no matter what Sanzo thought she might have done before, and that was enough for Gojyo, and the priest could stick it up his ass if that wasn't good enough for him, and what's more, Gojyo would fight him for his contempt. And Sanzo's companion perked up at that, but they hardly even scuffled before the woman gave herself up. Gojyo couldn't believe it.  
  
Even though Gojyo argued for her, she'd just smiled and told him not to worry. She deserved the temple's judgment. She was a murderer, or so Sanzo said, and she had not disagreed. And then Sanzo and Goku dragged her off to whatever stupid temple they'd come from.  
  
Her name was Kanan, and he was never going to see her again.


	2. Chapter 2

Gojyo gave up all hope. The house got run down and he spent every night for weeks in the care of the bartender and the women who flocked to him. He never took any of them home, but he made the barkeep happy because he rented out rooms for the night and only spent an hour at a time in them. It was better than going back to that empty house.  
  
His whole life felt empty now, and he'd never expected to get attached to anyone, let alone her. But there was no denying it now. Even he could see it, now that she was gone.  
  
One rare morning Gojyo woke up in his own bed. He went into his own kitchen and discovered what food he'd had had been carried off, piece by piece, by rats, who'd left little rat shits in piles in his cupboards. Gross. He didn't feel much like walking back into town, but what else could he do? Even the coffee was gone. So he jammed his feet into his boots and started walking.  
  
It seemed like a very long walk with the hangover he had, on no caffeine and an empty stomach. To top it off, he could feel a blister forming on the pad of his left foot. It felt like he was grinding glass in with every step. He limped a little way further under the broiling sun, feeling shittier and shittier with every step. He knew he was having a pity party, but he felt like it today.   
  
He sat on one of the infrequent mile-markers, carved as it was into a convenient boulder, and peeled off his boot to check out the blister.   
  
"Shit," he said.   
  
It was huge. If he walked all the way to town on it, he'd be real sorry. But there wasn't anyone else to go for him. He didn't have neighbors or, he swallowed hard, a roommate. He put his boot back on. Nothing for it but more of the same.  
  
Gojyo stood again and limped a little further down the road. He kept his eyes to the ground, avoiding ankle-twisting holes and rocks. From far off, he heard a rumbling, like a whole herd of water buffalo stomping down the road, and it was coming from behind him. He stepped down into the ditch and took a look.  
  
"Huh," he said. "Don't see that every day."  
  
It was a car, a jeep, dark blue. Cars were rare around here because not only were they expensive, and you had to find gas for it somehow, but most people just walked and never went more than fifty miles from where they were born.  
  
The jeep rolled to a stop next to Gojyo.  
  
"Excuse me," said the driver. "Is this the way to Chang-An?"  
  
Gojyo shaded his eyes and squinted up at the person in the driver's seat. It took him a second to place who it was.  
  
"Kanan!" he said.  
  
He hopped up onto the driver's side door and reached out to hug her. She flinched away and he dropped back.  
  
"Sorry," he said. "It's just…y'know…never thought I'd see you again."  
  
She smiled and got out of the jeep. She looked better than the last time he'd seen her, though that might have to do with her wearing decent clothes and not his hand-me downs. Tentatively, she reached for his hand and, getting it, gave it a brief squeeze. Kanan was warm and alive.  
  
"That's the first time you've ever said my name," she said. "I always thought you'd ask, someday."  
  
"I thought they'd killed you," he blurted out.  
  
She winced.  
  
"No," she said. "Sanzo interceded, and I was given a second chance."  
  
"Huh," said Gojyo.  
  
He thought for a minute.  
  
"You in town for long?" said Gojyo.  
  
"As a matter of fact, I am," Kanan said. "As long as I can find somewhere to stay. The monks looked after me while I was gone, but it's not like they could give me money to start over with. Not all of them were happy that I was to go out into the world again."  
  
"You could come back with me," said Gojyo. "The place is a mess, but it's still standing."  
  
"I couldn't impose," she said. "But thank you."  
  
Gojyo hadn't expected to feel so lousy. He hadn't expected to be turned down, either. It just seemed real easy, natural-like, even if they were months away from the settled life they'd shared. He'd offered without thinking.  
  
"What's with the jeep?" said Gojyo.  
  
It was an obvious change in subject, but it meant he could look at the car and not at her.  
  
Kanan patted the hood, and the engine revved. Then the whole thing flashed, and a tiny red dragon wound itself around her neck. When Gojyo approached, it flamed at him, hissing between tiny sharp teeth. He backed off.  
  
"Oh," said Gojyo. "And a red dragon equals a blue jeep how?"  
  
Kanan shrugged, and the little dragon dug its claws into her shoulders.  
  
"How does a dragon become a vehicle, period?" she said. "I have no idea."  
  
They stood in the middle of the road for a couple more minutes, totally silent.  
  
"I'd better get going," said Gojyo. "I've got a little shopping to do in town."  
  
He looked at Kanan and hesitated before sticking out a hand. She didn't take it, so he took it back.  
  
"See you around, yeah?" he said.  
  
And Gojyo kept on walking.  
  
By the time he'd haggled over the carrots and the rice and the salt fish, both of his feet were blistered and he could feel a sunburn rising over his cheeks. He slung the string bag over his shoulder and started on the long walk back to his house. So intent was he on not popping his blisters before he got home that he didn't see Kanan until she got right in his face, just outside the village gate.  
  
"What do you want?" he said.  
  
"Let me give you a ride home," Kanan said. "It's the least I can do after all you've done for me."  
  
Her arm brushed against his and he remembered, vividly, those mornings where he'd woke with her around him.  
  
"If you really want," said Gojyo.  
  
It took a remarkably short time in the jeep to get from the village to his house. And when they got there, the little dragon looked tired, so he invited them in for a cup of tea and something to eat, now that he had food. Gojyo could see the wheels turning in Kanan's head as she looked around the kitchen. He sighed.  
  
"I know it's a dump," he said. "But I'm responsible for it. I'll clean it, eventually."  
  
"Gojyo," she said.  
  
And it wasn't without affection. He knew she knew he was lying about cleaning. The only cleaning he'd ever do would be to torch the whole place, and that would leave him without a roof over his head.  
  
"The offer still stands," said Gojyo. "It'll be getting dark soon, and I don't like the rumors I've been hearing."  
  
The way Kanan stiffened in her chair told him that she'd heard the rumors as well. Youkai, roaming the hills, in search of easy prey. They wouldn't think twice about attacking a lone woman, dragon or no.  
  
"That's sexist," Kanan said, absently.   
  
Then her gaze sharpened on him. He was reminded how green her eyes were, how beautiful. Gojyo found himself staring and he made himself look away first.  
  
"I can take care of myself," she said.  
  
"So," said Gojyo. "Was it true? Why Sanzo came for you?"  
  
Kanan lowered her eyes. Her hands shook.  
  
"Yes," she said. She paused. "No. I'm not really sure."  
  
She put a hand to her stomach, right over the scars Gojyo knew were there.


	3. Chapter 3

Even though she'd said she wasn't going to, Kanan stayed the night. It was the opposite of those early days—Gojyo was in his bed, and Kanan took the couch. He still stayed up listening to her toss and turn. Maybe things were still kind of the same.  
  
He drifted off eventually, and when he woke it was to the dull roar of the vacuum. Gojyo smiled for just a second, wistful. Things were just like before.  
  
Kanan was in the living room, going over a particular spot in the carpet. Gojyo had a sense of déjà vu: she'd dug out one of his old shirts and it hung off her almost the same way his shirts used to fit her, when she was laid out in his bed. Her hair was different, though. The braid that usually dangled down her back was coiled up on top of her head, and Gojyo thought it might have been shorter than it used to be. He fingered a lock of his own hair. He'd thought about cutting it, but he never had and it was longer than when he'd last seen Kanan, walking off between Sanzo and Goku. No hiding what he was now. Not that he'd done much hiding from her.  
  
"Gojyo?" said Kanan.  
  
He jumped, like he'd been caught doing something wrong, looking at her. He let his eyes drift up to meet hers.  
  
"Hey," he said. "Didn't think you'd still be here."  
  
"I wasn't going to stay," she said. "But things around here are…"  
  
She stopped. Blushed.  
  
"I don't mean to be insulting," Kanan said. "But I can help, at least for a little while. Let me pay you back for…"  
  
She twisted her hands together. Gojyo stepped forward and covered her hands with his own.  
  
"Sure," he said, as gentle as he knew how. "You stay as long as you want."  
  
"Your hands," she said. "They're beautiful, you know?"  
  
She took one of them between hers and held it to her cheek. She looked up at him through lowered lashes, the corners of her mouth turning up.  
  
"You remind me of my brother, sometimes," said Kanan. "But you're really nothing like him."  
  
Gojyo wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not, but he couldn't really argue with the way she looked at him then. It made him feel shivery on the inside, and a little lust-y, truth be told. He told himself it was totally not all right to hit on her. He cleared his throat.  
  
"I'll just go…do something," he said.  
  
He gently withdrew his hand from hers.  
  
Gojyo felt her eyes follow him all the way out of the room, and it made him wonder if Kanan felt the same way.  
  
  
It was amazing to Gojyo how quick they settled into a routine again. He did the outside-the-house stuff like poker and buying groceries and beer—which she never drank, but he did—and Kanan did all sorts of around-the-house stuff. She cleaned like crazy, did the cooking and laundry, and she even started a garden out back. His house started looking like their home. And even when there was nothing Gojyo could see to keep Kanan there, she stayed.  
  
This was different, though, than any other time he'd lived with someone else. Gojyo _wanted_ her to stay, so he was real careful not to do things that might make her leave. He always came home early and he never brought any of his dates back with him. Truth be told, he kind of didn't have many dates any more, not since word got around that he was shacked up with a chick. Other chicks—even the ones hanging all over him at the bar—didn't seem to like that kind of thing.  
  
And he supposed it was true. He didn't give a girl his complete attention any more, because there was always the sense of "What would Kanan think?" in the back of his head. So he went home every night like he was whipped, even though he really wasn't. Things were…nice. He just wanted them to stay that way.


	4. Chapter 4

It took a few weeks before Kanan came to his bed to sleep, whether he was in it or not.  She seemed to have less nightmares than before, which was good. Kanan didn't crawl to the edge of the bed any more, either, which was also good. He would've said it was great, but there was the whole awkward-in-the-morning thing which neither of them really seemed to get past, and he wasn't sure if it was because he—or she—wanted—or didn't want— _something_ to happen between them.  
  
Because Gojyo knew the shape and feel of her body now, and he was sure Kanan knew the same of him. He knew how she smelled, how warm she was beneath the covers. She had soft little freckles that dotted her shoulders, drawing lines and patterns across her skin that he couldn't quite make out.   
  
He knew her well in sleep, but when she was awake, it was like she was a different person. She was shy and gentle, and he was walking on eggshells, sometimes, because he didn't want to scare her away.  
  
One night, when the rain drummed hard on the roof and Kanan shivered under the covers, Gojyo asked her.  
  
"What's wrong?" he said. "I think you can trust me not to tell anyone."  
  
She rolled over and faced him.  
  
"I killed three people," she said. "And I tried for a fourth, but you stopped me."   
  
The wind kicked up and raindrops battered the windows. Kanan cringed.  
  
"I don't think I've really—gotten over it, not yet," she said. "And the rain makes it worse."  
  
Gojyo's scalp prickled. He'd stopped her? She'd never done anything…  
  
"You see," Kanan said. "What I did wasn't nearly so bad as what my brother had done. He killed a thousand youkai trying to save me. But he couldn't save himself."  
  
"He must have loved you a lot," said Gojyo.  
  
It was the only thing he could think to say. Kanan smiled. Her eyes were shining wet.  
  
"I killed him," she said. "He would have died slowly, even though by then he'd turned into a youkai himself. All that strength wouldn't—couldn't—have saved him by then. So I did."  
  
She'd killed her brother? Gojyo tried, he really tried, to imagine himself in her shoes, but he couldn't.  
  
"He was in terrible pain," she said.  
  
Kanan took a deep, shuddering breath, and Gojyo could tell how strong the memory was. The scars on his face ached in sympathy.   
  
She ticked her crimes off on her fingers.  
  
"I killed the man who would have killed him," she said. "And I killed a baby. _His_ baby."  
  
She smiled, sad.  
  
"And I nearly died myself for the trouble," she said. "The monks tell me I may never have another."  
  
Gojyo thought he'd misheard. She'd scrambled her own insides with a knife? And his hands remembered packing her intestines back in, kneeling in the mud in the middle of the road. He thought to himself that there were easier, less painful ways to have an abortion, if she wanted. But he didn't dare say it out loud.  
  
They lay, quiet, in Gojyo's bed. The minutes crawled by with nothing but the falling rain to occupy them. After a time, Kanan rolled onto her stomach. Gojyo stayed where he was on the off chance that he'd spook her by moving.  
  
"Is it true?" she said. "Are half-breeds incapable of having children?"  
  
Gojyo shrugged.  
  
"Hell if I know," he said.   
  
He thought of all the times he'd never used a condom. And no one had ever come beating his door down, so he guessed maybe he was just lucky.  
  
"I wish you hadn't saved me," she said.  
  
If it had been some other lifetime, he could have fallen in love with her. As it was, here _she_ was, crying on his shoulder, so to speak, and he couldn't make a move.  
  
"I loved him so much," said Kanan. "Gonou was the kindest, gentlest person…we were lovers."  
  
Gojyo was reminded of another time, another woman who cried and cried and talked of love and looked at _his_ brother like she'd apparently been looking at hers. For the first time, Kanan made him nervous.  
  
At last, she pulled herself together. She looked at him and winced.  
  
"I've hurt you," she said. "I know I have."  
  
"I'll get over it," he said. "It's nothing."  
  
He could tell she thought it wasn't nothing. And it wasn't nothing, but he'd make it into nothing, somehow.  
  
He turned off the light and listened to her breathing and the rain until he fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

"Are you going to tell me your story?" she said.

Gojyo choked on his breakfast. He coughed a few times, his eyes watered, and he ended up spitting the half-chewed mouthful out. He looked at Kanan looking at him and sighed. He took a sip of his coffee and scalded his tongue.

"Not much to tell," Gojyo said. "Youkai dad, human mom, got dumped with Dad's real, youkai wife."

Kanan nodded. He felt the words bubbling up inside and tried to clamp down on them.

"She hated me," he said. "And then, one day—"

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Kanan's soft hand brushed against his scarred cheek.

"These were hers, weren't they?" she said.

He didn't say anything until after she took her hand away.

"I had a brother too," he said. "I guess he looked just like dad. Mom—she—"

He thought about it for the first time in a long time, how to explain the tangles.

"He saved my life," Gojyo said. "Only Jien could calm her down. And when he couldn't, when she did this, he…"

Gojyo sliced a finger across his own neck. He remembered the blood all too clearly, and he let his hand drop into his lap. He tried to tell himself he wasn't shaking, but all the telling himself in the world didn't stop him from slopping his hot drink all over one hand. He blew at it futilely, then gave up and licked the coffee off, finger by finger. His hand was hot and pink and it cooled slowly. The kitchen was quiet enough that he could hear her breathing.

"So anyway," he said. "That's it."

"I'm so sorry," said Kanan.

Gojyo shrugged.

"What can you do?" he said. "Time I got over it. Nothing I can do about it, either."

"Let me see to your hand," she said. "It must hurt."

So he let her wash it, smooth some cream on it, and bandage him up. Her green eyes were dark with what Gojyo imagined was guilt.


	6. Chapter 6

The two of them muddled along for a while longer. Gojyo saw the way Kanan looked at him, with pity and understanding, and he thought that she didn't understand him at all.  
  
She loosened up some, though, after he told her about his fucked up family, and she told him more about his. Gonou, her brother, was her twin. They were closer than close. They were orphans, raised separately, and the hadn't found out until after they'd fallen in love. Kanan always got dreamy when she talked about Gonou.  
  
"You would have liked him," she said. "Everyone did."  
  
Gojyo started to hate the dead man in the room on principle.  
  
Kanan never talked about the night Gonou died. She never talked about why he'd come to rescue her, though Gojyo put some of it together on his own. Hyakugen Maoh's clan had been wiped out just around that time, and that bastard was famous for kidnapping and eating beautiful women. Gojyo was also pretty sure about why Kanan was so gun-shy, even though they shared a bed most nights.  
  
It made Gojyo wonder about the baby that had never been born, and he felt cold thinking those thoughts. Would it have been like him? Or had it been Gonou's and she couldn't stand the thought of raising his kid without him? Gojyo was sure Kanan knew exactly what he was thinking. He was sure she hated him for it, even though she didn't call him on it.  
  
And then one day, while they were having one of those soul-searching sorts of breakfasts, parked on the couch with the TV on so it didn't feel quite so quiet, the front door came crashing in and a man stood in the opening.  
  
Banri had come back.   
  
Gojyo felt himself gaping. He saw how angry Kanan looked, those lips tight with disapproval and a hint of fear around the eyes. Banri wasn't wearing his limiter, and he looked feral. Dangerous, like the slightest move would set him off. It was his usual. Gojyo looked at Kanan again.  
  
"It's okay," he said. "I know him."  
  
"Banri," said Gojyo. "What the fuck, man! Where've you been?"  
  
He stood and placed himself between Kanan and his ex-roommate.  
  
"Damn," said Banri. "I heard you were hooked up with a chick, but look what she's done with this shithole! I never would've believed it in a million years if I wasn't seeing it."  
  
Banri looked Kanan up and down, baring his teeth in admiration. Gojyo wanted to punch him for it. Banri took a step closer and slugged Gojyo's shoulder.  
  
"You done good, Gojyo," he said. "She cleans _and_ she's a looker."  
  
" _She_ is right here," said Kanan.  
  
Banri raised both hands in defense, although Gojyo could tell he was having a hard time not laughing.  
  
"Sorry babe," Banri said. " You're just kinda a cut above this guy's usual, you know?"  
  
Kanan stood and smiled so cold Gojyo expected her to frost over everything she touched.  
  
"Care for a cup of tea?" she said.  
  
Gojyo wouldn't have put it past her to poison Banri's drink. Gojyo understood the feeling—his ex-roomie got that reaction a lot. Kanan retreated to the kitchen without waiting for a reply.  
  
Gojyo jabbed an elbow in Banri's side.  
  
"Tone it down, man," he said.  
  
"Just makin' conversation," said Banri.  
  
Gojyo raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Why are you really here?" he said. "No word for a year plus and then you fucking kick my door down?"  
  
"A guy can't just drop by?" said Banri. "Fuck, seriously, I just thought you'd be up for some fun, even if some bitch does have you by the balls."  
  
Gojyo frowned.  
  
"It's just a little job," said Banri. "It'll be just like the good old days."  
  
Hah. Everyone wanted to put him to work. Sanzo had dropped by only a couple days ago, trying to turn him into some sort of fucking hunting dog, looking for some thieves who were hitting temples.  
  
"Your head must be on backwards," said Gojyo. "The good old days weren't that good."  
  
They'd kinda sucked, actually, between the stealing and the running and the beatings he dished and received. Banri'd been his first friend, really, but he hadn't been a _good_ one.  
  
"I gotcha," said Banri. "That pretty piece in there won't let you, huh?"  
  
Banri threw his head back and laughed.  
  
"Never thought I'd see the day when the great Sha Gojyo would choose a chick over a fuckton of money."  
  
He looked Gojyo in the eye, then.  
  
"Guess times really have changed," he said. "The offer stands. See you around."  
  
And almost as quick as he'd come, Banri left.  
  
Gojyo followed him with his eyes until Banri was beyond where he could see.   
  
In the kitchen, the tea kettle screamed.  
  
  
  
It wasn't more than a week later when Gojyo got stuck cleaning up Banri's mess: a couple thugs showed up and he went with them, leaving Kanan behind. It was his business, Banri's business, but it wasn't hers.  
  
He waited until the three of them were out of sight of the house before he made a fuss with his fists.   
  
He still ended up tossed in front of a tied-up Banri with some gang of idiots howling for blood. It really was just like the old days. Gojyo'd really hoped Banri had left town, but his luck wasn't with him. He switched places with Banri, playing hostage while Banri was supposed to be robbing the temple at Chang-An. It made Gojyo smile. If Banri was that big of an idiot, if he didn't run like Gojyo assumed he would, he deserved to have Sanzo's gun in his face be the last thing he ever saw.  
  
"What're you smiling at, huh?" said one of the thugs. "Banri's not back yet, and it's coming up zero hour."  
  
Gojyo shelved the thought for later. He relaxed in his seat, testing how slack the ropes were around him.  
  
"You dumb asses never should've let Banri get near the door," said Gojyo. "He's never coming back."  
  
Gojyo turned his friendly smile around the room.  
  
"Little mongrel bastard," said the leader of the gang. "That just mean's we're gonna take it out on _you_. And your time's about up."  
  
They got in a couple good hits to his gut on top of what they'd already done, knocked the wind out of him. Gojyo spat blood to one side. So this was it, huh? Tied like a pig for the slaughter, at the mercy of a bunch of youkai meatheads. He tested the ropes again. If he didn't mind popping a joint or two, he could get himself untied.    
  
The door swung open. All of them stared at the new arrival, temporarily blocked by a large, black umbrella.  
  
"Banri?" wheezed Gojyo.  
  
The umbrella swung out of the way, dripping on the floor. It was Kanan. She looked pale and small, particularly standing next to the guys who were doing a shit job guarding the door. Gojyo felt ill.  
  
"Who're you, you bitch?" said the leader. "We didn't call for no slut."  
  
"I thought Gojyo might need an umbrella for the walk home," she said.  
  
"You shouldn't be here," said Gojyo. "Get out."  
  
"Oh, this is cute," said one of the guys. "You girlfriend's come to rescue you."  
  
"Fine," said the leader. "We'll do you, and _then_ do him. Or maybe we'll save you for later, yeah?"  
  
He snapped his fingers, and the men grinned like beasts. They stepped forward, one by one.  
  
Kanan sighed. She snapped her umbrella shut.  
  
"Remind me to try to leave you alive," she said. "It can be difficult to control myself, sometimes."  
  
  
  
Getting rescued by a girl wasn't as humiliating as he'd thought it was going to be. He had to revise his opinion of umbrellas as weapons, though. She'd done things that he'd never even imagined with that umbrella.  
  
"So," said Gojyo. "You a youkai or what?"  
  
She was almost giddily cheerful as they limped home, leaning on one another.  
  
"The monks think it has to do with Gonou being so fresh from turning when I killed him," Kanan said. "Although half of them think it has to do with our being twins."  
  
"What kind of a youkai doesn't have a limiter?" said Gojyo. "And you…look like you."  
  
Well, minus the gory state of her clothes, she looked the same as always.  
  
"I have never stopped being myself," she said. "But I suppose I took something of Gonou into me, that day. I remember…how angry he was."   
  
He looked at her, skipping along in the rain, and he couldn't quite reconcile what she was doing now with what she had done. Even now, the rain was washing her clean.  
  
"I am perfectly capable of defending myself," said Kanan.  
  
"I can see that," Gojyo said. "You defended yourself right through six guys' insides."  
  
At that, she blushed and stopped walking.  
  
"I really didn't mean to," she said. "But I couldn't just leave you there."  
  
She frowned.  
  
"I knew Banri was trouble," she said. "I don't know what you saw in him."  
  
"Sometimes, neither did I," said Gojyo. "But I couldn't abandon him."  
  
"No," said Kanan. "I suppose you couldn't."  
  
The rain came down harder. Gojyo felt drowned.  
  
"I wish my umbrella hadn't broken," said Kanan. "We could really use one."  
  
Gojyo laughed and instantly regretted it. Shit. Maybe those guys had cracked a rib.  
  
"Let's go home," he said. "I'll buy you a new one."


	7. Chapter 7

After the whole Banri cock-up, things were easier. Gojyo played poker and drank and shopped, but he came home to Kanan. Sometimes Kanan went with him and was the woman on his arm, and sometimes he was the man on hers as she emptied everyone's wallets. It was a pretty good feeling, that pride in her as she smiled and dealt the cards to another round of suckers, and when she turned in her seat to smile at him…he'd never felt better in his life.   
  
She didn't talk about leaving, which also made Gojyo happy. He didn't want her to, and he didn't want her to think he wanted her to, so he didn't say anything about it either. He even got used to the little red dragon sleeping in the gas oven, keeping warm on top of the pilot light. And it was really convenient to be able to drive places, so convenient that he only punched a couple of people who'd made fun of Gojyo's "kept man" status when they rolled into town, Kanan at the wheel. It was her dragon, after all, even if she never said where it'd come from.  
  
The not-talking-about-important-stuff thing worked pretty well for them, on the whole. She didn't say much about her life before now, and he did the same. Her nightmares grew less, and the distance between them in the bed grew less as well. She no longer jerked away from him like he burned her through the sheets. And if this sudden decrease in distance lead to an increase in his rubbing one out in the shower in the morning, then, well, it was a small price to pay to wake up to someone so sweet and warm every morning.   
  
Once in a while, he woke up with his morning wood wedged between her thighs, or snug against the crease between the end of her butt and the beginning of her legs and he was pretty sure she was awake and could feel him, but the not-talking thing saved him there too. He'd fake waking up, roll over, and make a beeline for the bathroom. By the time he was out of the shower, Kanan would be cooking breakfast in the kitchen and feeding the scraps to the dragon.  
  
Gojyo started to have dreams about Kanan. It was kind of a given that his waking fantasies starred her, considering where he woke up in the mornings and the fact that he hadn't slept with a chick since before getting kidnapped and rescued by Kanan, but then his subconscious started in, too. Kanan turned into a porn star when he closed his eyes at night, touching him here and there, whispering things to him that were ridiculously fucking filthy, would've made him laugh if anyone'd said them in real life. For a torturous few weeks, Gojyo thought it was all in his head and that he was going to have to move out of his house and never see Kanan again to make it all stop. He did his best to keep a lid on it, but there was only so much he could do.  
  
Gojyo didn't put two and two together for a while, not until a very rare morning when he woke up before her and when he slipped out of the bed she, still asleep and dreaming, eyes moving delicately beneath the lids, said his name. Not the way Kanan usually said it, but the way a _woman_ said it. Like a woman he was sleeping with would say it. The difference made him harder than he'd been in a long time, and he had to leave the room quick before she woke up and saw him standing over her with a tent in his pajamas. He didn't even make it to the shower that time.   
  
And even though Gojyo did his own laundry so that Kanan wouldn't run into the evidence of what he'd just done, he was not-so-secretly pleased. At least subconsciously, Kanan was pairing the two of them up too. Maybe he wouldn't have to move out after all. Too bad sex was one of the things on their never-talk-about-it list. Gojyo would have to do some thinking about how to make it un-taboo, because, at this stage, he was man enough to admit that he wanted Kanan. And maybe she didn't really want him back, but he'd never get anywhere if he didn't try.   
  
Gojyo tried not to think about how the worst that might happen would be that she would either kill him or  leave. Or both. She could definitely do both. The fact that she could gut him with an umbrella and her own strength was less of a deterrent than it should have been. Gojyo groaned. He was hard again, and Kanan would be getting up any time now, he just knew it. Time to hit the shower.  
  


  
Gojyo was the first person to admit that seduction was his default, his defense mechanism. Trouble? Flirt your way out of it. Someone getting touchy about his hair? Schmooze and leave. It didn't take a genius to realize that this behavior was not going to get him any further ahead with Kanan. He'd seen how she reacted to flirting: badly. At best, she gave the cold shoulder to whatever idiot decided she was fair game. It didn't seem like a big deal, that cold shoulder act, not until she got home. When people couldn't see her, she shook and raged and wept, spiraling headfirst into nightmares. And Gojyo couldn't even touch her most of the time, because that made it worse.  
  
He felt clumsy when he tried to handle her gently, and he knew that Kanan knew what he was doing when he tried, ever so carefully, to steer her in a different direction when she was heading straight for nightmares, when some stupid jerk from town was stuck in her head and she wanted to take the jeep and drive back and kick his teeth in and torch his house. Because Kanan told him this, her voice calm as could be, but there was blood in her eyes and her hands knotted themselves into fists. Gojyo got the feeling she'd do it if he let her. Beating someone up and burning down his house was, he didn't doubt, a crime that Sanzo's temple would send an investigator for. He doubted Sanzo himself would show—it was a far too worldly crime for his holy ass to get out of bed for—but the temple policed the villages around it pretty consistently, and somehow everything made its way back to Sanzo.  
  
From the little Kanan had told him, old-fashioned courting wasn't going to work either. Gonou had done that. He'd taken her on walks and given her flowers. All that stuff. The loss of Gonou ate at Kanan. Gojyo knew it did, because she did the same sorts of things that he'd done when Jien had left, except it was different and worse for her because she had killed her brother herself. He had a hard time imagining it.  
  
So Gojyo did what he could do to comfort Kanan, even when that meant nothing more than pretending she was fine. He waited for something in her to break, maybe the one thing left that _wasn't_ broken.

  
  
Kanan was getting thinner. Beside him, in the bed, her body had a disturbingly hollow quality: there was space between her ribs and hips that hadn't been there before, a sharp drop between her breastbone and the scar that cut her stomach in half. Her breasts seemed…disconnected from the thin, starved look of the rest of her. It worried Gojyo.   
  
She ate the same things she fed him, had taken up drinking rice wine when he had beer, but she might have well been eating air for all the good it did her. She'd never been fat-fat, not in all the time he'd known her, but somewhere in the time when he'd thought she'd been executed and when she'd come back, Kanan had started thinning out, and she hadn't stopped. He wondered, vaguely, if being pregnant had made her fat and it had taken her body all this time to figure out that there wasn't going to be a baby any more. Gojyo knew better than to ask.  
  
He tried to tempt her with her favorite foods when they went out, and when she sent him to town with a shopping list, he always got a little something extra: sweet buns still hot from the baker's, the first peaches of the season, toffee sold by old man Yi's niece. He shared these things with Kanan, but he was always careful to give her a slightly bigger half.   
  
Over the days and weeks that piled up like the dead leaves in the yard, Gojyo became an expert at bigger halves. Food was easier to divvy than things like personal space or the square feet of the bed. He did his best to give her what he thought she needed. Kanan got the biggest share of his thoughts, too. It was practically more planning than he'd ever done his whole life, but he didn't feel mad about it. It made him feel…kind of nice, actually, to think that Kanan depended on him for something. She was, ever so slowly, losing that scary-edged hollowness under his patient care, and he figured he'd keep on keeping on until she looked healthy again or until she told him to stop, which didn't seem real likely.   
  
Gojyo still didn't dare say anything directly, to her face: even though they lived together and slept in the same bed, there were times when Kanan could have been on the moon, she was so far away from him. He didn't want her to stay away, too stuck in her own head to see the things right in front of her, so he didn't say all the things he could have said, all the things he wanted to say, things like _Don't you dare die_ or _Why can't you just tell me what's wrong?_   or _Maybe I could love you if you'd let me_. That last one he hardly even thought to himself, but the idea was still in the back of his head all the time. Could he? Did he? The idea made him sick and dizzy and happy, all at the same time.   
  
Gojyo kept all the words inside where they wouldn't scare anyone but him, and the days of not-saying-anything passed, one by one.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated E for explicit sex.
> 
> That being said, yay for a new chapter, right? XD

One quiet, rainy evening, when Gojyo was in the bar, playing a few friendly rounds of poker with the usual suspects, Kanan came for him. The sight of the umbrella in her hand had him weirdly half-hard in the time it took for her to cross from the entrance to his table. It was, a tiny part of his brain registered, a red umbrella. The one he'd bought for her. He tried to will his dick to go down. When that didn't work, he prayed his pants were loose enough for no one to notice.  
  
"I fold," he said.  
  
The other guys gave Gojyo knowing looks. He wanted to punch them. Not for how they looked at him, but for how they casually eyefucked Kanan. That same tiny part of his brain told him that this was how he himself would look at the women in the bar, if Kanan weren't around, but since she was and he didn't, Gojyo could be offended.  
  
"Gojyo," said Kanan. "Are you ready?"  
  
Gojyo nodded and stood.  
  
Kanan took him by the wrist and led him out of the bar, under the red umbrella.  
  
If she was a little closer to him than usual as they picked their way between the road’s ruts and potholes, Gojyo reasoned it was because there was only so much room between the edges of the umbrella. Her right side brushed against his left every few steps. She was warm, but he must have felt warm to her: she snuggled up tight against him and draped his arm across her shoulders. It was sexy, in a way, even if Kanan didn't mean it like that because Kanan was never intentionally sexy with him. With anyone, really. That didn't stop Gojyo from wanting this to be real.  
  
Gojyo wished they could keep on walking, just like this, but Kanan led him straight home. Was it his imagination, or was she hurrying? It didn't feel like as long a walk as usual, but then he wasn't usually completely sober. Also, he didn't have anyone with him most nights, and going places alone was different. Quieter. Longer. They made it to the house in what felt like record time.  
  
He unlocked the front door, opened it, and waved at Kanan.  
  
"Ladies first," he said.  
  
She closed her umbrella and hung it on a nail sticking out of the siding. The water dripped down off it. Then, she turned and took Gojyo by the hand.  
  
"Let's do it," Kanan said.  
  
She stepped over the threshold, her arm bridging the distance between their bodies. Kanan tugged on him and he stumbled through.  
  
"You can let go of my hand," he said. "I can walk."  
  
He was also thinking about how it would be hard to get out of his boots one-handed and not make a big, muddy mess that Kanan would frown about.  
Kanan laid one hand on his jaw and tilted his head to meet her eyes.  
  
"Let's do it," she said. "Have sex with me."  
  
His brain short-circuited. He scrambled for something to say, something that didn‘t stumble off his tongue.  
  
"Now?" Gojyo said.  
  
Kanan laughed. She walked around him, closed the front door, and came back to stand in front of him. She had Gojyo's complete attention.  
  
"Now," she said. "Come on."  
  
Kanan beckoned.  
  
Gojyo followed.  
  
  
The few lamps they had were all glowing, concentrated around the bed and on the nightstand and the bureau and the sill of the lone window. The shadows they left in the small room were soft, barely black and huddling in the corners. It blew his mind a little that she’d planned even this far.  
  
Kanan just stood, looking everywhere but him, and Gojyo felt his throat tighten. Her nervousness spread to him like fire, but he couldn't stop thinking about what she was offering. He didn't say no because this could be it, his one chance.  He wanted this for selfish reasons, too, reasons that went way beyond Kanan's trust in him. He swallowed hard.  
  
Gojyo wasn't so sure about the whole thing, not really, but the way Kanan stripped out of her clothes told him they were going to have sex or die trying. He wanted to laugh at how serious she was, except it was as serious for him not to screw up as it was that Kanan had offered in the first place. Hell, this was the first time in a long time he'd even seen her body in the light of day, so to speak. He wanted to take full advantage, as long as she felt like letting him look.  
  
Of course he saw that scar first. How couldn't he? It dominated her stomach, curving, wicked, clawing, and for the first time Gojyo wondered if it was only a knife that got her. Jagged bits like thorns branched off at the ends, but most of the scar was solid and twisted up dead white all around her stomach. Gojyo saw the way she looked at him looking at her. She was so scared her body language screamed at him. There was no way this would work out like he thought she wanted—like he hoped she wanted—unless what she really after was for him to screw up so she could say 'Sex? Definitely not for me.' Gojyo drew her to the bed and pulled a sheet over her.  
  
"You don't have to talk about it," Gojyo said. "You don't have to look at me, either, if you don't want."  
  
He sat on the bed, more or less back-to Kanan and pretended he was talking to himself. It’s hurt him if she actually took him at his word there, because even now he was…hoping for more than he thought she’d give.  
  
"If you want me to stop or slow down, or if I'm hurting you, I want to know," he said. "I don't want to hurt you. Not now, not ever."  
  
Gojyo didn't say that if she wanted to be hurt she needed to go somewhere else. He didn't want her to go anywhere, and he'd kill the man who hurt her because no matter what Kanan might think, she didn't deserve that. But maybe some of that feeling leaked through into his voice anyway and Kanan understood without him saying a word about it. He heard her take a deep breath.  
  
"Okay," she said. "You can turn around."  
  
He did, and the first thing he did was study her face. Her eyes were wide and the color was so deeply green that Gojyo felt himself being swallowed by her eyes. If she was still scared (and he wouldn't believe she wasn't, at least a little,) it didn't show anymore.  
  
Kanan reached for him. She helped him out of his shirt. Her hands shook on the buttons, and she had to keep stopping to readjust the sheet over her. It was slow work. When the shirt fell away, Kanan's hands rested on his chest for a split second. She drew them back slow and Gojyo felt unexpectedly tender. The impression of her hands on his skin stayed long after they were gone, long after she had sat herself with her back against the headboard.  
  
Gojyo wriggled out of the rest of his clothes by himself, but he felt the weight of her eyes on him, as if was her who undid his belt, her hands on his zipper, her hands on the waist of his underwear. He was suddenly, painfully aware of how hard he was, and it was worse than ever knowing that she saw it too¾she'd barely even touched him, and maybe she wasn’t going to at all. There was a lot he didn’t know about what she’d class as “having sex,” so maybe touching him wasn’t even on the menu.  
  
Gojyo lifted up the sheet and Kanan helped him push it to the corner of the bed. He crouched opposite her.  
  
"You sure?" he said.  
  
Kanan's eyes said yes, but Gojyo waited until she actually nodded before he moved closer.  
  
He went very, very slowly, let himself touch first the crown of her head, lifting the layers of her hair from the scalp, following the length of it with his fingers. A few dark hairs caught in the calluses on his hands. He brushed them away and they fell to join the rest beneath his palms. He didn't dare look at all of Kanan yet, half-afraid she'd change her mind and half afraid he'd embarrass himself all over her, as turned on and nervous as he was.  
  
Gojyo moved his hands down to her face, and though she didn't say anything, he could feel her move to press her cheek against him in that instant.  
  
It wasn’t a surprise that he had to make all the starting moves. She didn't resist him, but he got the feeling that she'd used all the braveness she had just saying yes in the first place. The rain outside filled the silence in the room. Gojyo couldn't tell if that made it better or worse when he kissed her. Her lips were warm but dry, and there wasn't even a hint of openness there, but that was okay. Measure for measure, he returned to her what she gave to him. Her lashes brushed high on his cheeks.  
  
Gojyo eased down her body, from face to neck, neck to collarbones. He tried hard to believe this was real. It was so much better, so much more, than he'd ever dreamed. He cupped one of her breasts between his hands. It was warm and heavy with a certain give to it that made him re-form his hands around it just to feel it conform to the gap he'd left. He was careful not to squeeze, just to hold, first one and then the other, and Kanan sighed. Her body relaxed more and the weight of her breasts slid outward, towards the edges of her ribs.  
  
It was then that Gojyo spotted the scars on the undersides: bitemarks. He'd seen enough in life to know a youkai bitemark when he saw one, and these ones were deep and just as angry-looking as the scar on her belly. Gojyo swallowed a hard lump in his throat and made himself look away. It just wasn’t right. Nothing he could do about it, but it still wasn’t right.  
  
Gojyo shook the hair out of his face. He continued south, just barely brushing over her belly with the tips of his fingers. He sneaked a look at her face: her eyes were almost closed, leaving just a line of green between thick lashes, and her mouth was open. The corners of it relaxed as she breathed in and out. Good.  
  
"Gojyo," she said.  
  
The sound of her voice sent a hot shiver up his spine. He paused where he was, hovering just over her navel and his fingers spread in an arc to span between belly and hip.  
  
"Yeah?" he said.  
  
He prayed that she didn't want to stop now. His mouth was dry with anticipation.  
  
"You're so good to me," she said.  
  
He didn't say anything stupid, like how he'd had a lot of practice being good to women, or how he'd been waiting for her for a long time now. He just hummed, a nice, neutral noise, and used his hands to bridge the gap between the slight rise of her belly and the curve of where her hip turned to thigh. He could do it with just one hand if he spread his fingers wide. It struck him, the difference between her skin and his. He knew a lot of people darker than him, but compared to the peachy-golden color of Kanan's thighs… Gojyo let himself drift a little, thinking of this as he stroked down her legs. It was almost hypnotic. He saw each little goosebump form as his fingers came close, saw the muscles under the skin tense and relax. With each pass, Kanan was less and less tense. It wasn't a massage, exactly, just touch. He didn’t want to stop.  
  
It surprised Gojyo when Kanan wrapped her hands around his wrists and dragged his fingers up to where he'd been avoiding as he‘d passed up and down her legs. He looked up at her to be sure. The green of her eyes was down to a near-invisible ring and she breathed in the way Gojyo knew meant a woman was turned on—even if, like Kanan, she'd never say so out loud. Kanan pressed his hands lightly to her skin. Then she let go of him.  
  
At first, Gojyo just rested his hands there, on the smooth, soft little hairs and felt how hot she was already. The heat of her was almost enough to burn, and the smell of her made his mouth water. Kanan always smelled like flowers, but now she smelled deeper, flowers and skin and sweat all mixed together, strong enough to make him dizzy. Or maybe that was because all the blood in his body had moved out of his head and south. Whatever.  
  
He let one finger stroke just there, then down. Kanan breathed in sharp, but Gojyo knew it was a good kind of sharp. She was slick against that finger. He drew it up again, let his hand rest there and let her get used to him touching her. He went back with that same finger, sliding between her thighs, skating down hot skin. Kanan's legs eased open an inch or two, and he was pretty sure it wasn't just his imagination that she moved against him on the upstroke that time. Gojyo tried it again, this time with two fingers. Nope. Not his imagination. Kanan was even wetter than before, and there was a definite, light pressure against his hand as he swept over her.  
  
He looked at her sideways under his lashes. There was a certain tension in her neck now, and her nipples were starting to pucker. He stroked between her legs, a little harder now, a little less exploring and a little more down to business. Her breath exploded out and her hips jerked. She opened her eyes and looked right at him. Gojyo smiled, and after a moment Kanan smiled back. If she liked that, she was going to love what he did next.  
  
Gojyo put one hand on each of her thighs and pushed, gently, out. She followed his direction and spread her legs with only a little hesitation. Gojyo kissed her belly, each thigh. And then, feeling her follow every move he made, hot and restless, Gojyo exercised more patience and restraint than he'd even thought he had, and just barely kissed where his fingers had been. Kissed. Mouthed. Let his lips open and traced each kiss with his tongue. Down. Again. Down deeper. Again. _Down_.  
  
  
Kanan mostly didn't look at him while he was between her legs. Gojyo snuck looks up at her in the valley of open space that led all the way up from where he was to the hollow of her throat—her head was turned aside, and she bit her lip like she was holding back noises of pain. He was sure he wasn't hurting her because she was so slick against his mouth and tongue and she smelled a bit like salt water and a bit like sweat and, oddly, faintly, like bleach, underneath the heady scent of flowers that seemed to seep from her pores. Kanan flexed her legs open, then back like maybe she was going to clamp them shut. Whether she really wanted to keep Gojyo out or wanted to keep his tongue buried in her, he wasn't convinced she herself knew. Her hands settled in his hair and stayed there. Her grip tugged at his scalp. Though Kanan couldn't see it, Gojyo smiled.  
  
And when, some time later, he reached up and her nipples were contracted and hard, and he found her belly quivering with every stroke of his tongue and fingers, Gojyo figured she was probably as ready as she was ever going to be. He knew he could get her to come any time now, and he would, too, except at almost the precise instant he decided that was what he should do (even though it would fucking kill him to do all this for her and _then_ take care of himself, all by himself) Kanan nudged him with her fingers. He pulled away reluctantly, gave her one last pat just to see her writhe against the sheets.  
  
"Yeah?" he said.  
  
He wiped his mouth off with the back of a hand. Not real classy, but if he kept smelling her and tasting her like that, he was going to blow his load without doing anything at all. And then he heard a certain, crinkling sound coming from between Kanan's fingers. She waggled an unmistakable foiled square at him.  
  
He was struck dumb at the sight of the condom in her hand. Gojyo looked twice just to make sure he wasn't imagining it. He didn't know where she got it and right now he didn't really care. He was too focused on the idea that she really wanted _that kind_ of sex. Right. Now.  
  
Putting it on was more force of habit than conscious thought because he'd waited too long and if he didn't get it on now… As it was, Gojyo had to close his eyes and squeeze firmly to hold off. He counted to ten in his head, then to twenty, just to be on the safe side. When he opened his eyes, the sight of Kanan on his bed, legs spread, inner thighs slick, was almost enough to set him off again. He felt his insides lurch. Gojyo fumbled to line himself up, took a deep breath, and pushed forward as gently as he knew how.  
  
For the first time in his life, Gojyo was grateful that he couldn't feel as much through the condom. Kanan burned hot around him, and he could feel how wet she was by the way he slipped inside.  
  
Kanan held him tight, inside and out. Her fingers clutched at his shoulders, squeezing the meat of his muscles, and her legs were stiff and trembling, out to the sides like she was afraid to hang on with them. She was so tight it hurt _him_ , which meant it had to be hurting her, right? So Gojyo pulled out, even more careful about exiting than he was going in. His dick spasmed, half in and half out, and he inhaled quick and held his breath and prayed. He calmed himself, barely.  
  
"Wait," Kanan said. "Please. Stay."  
  
And Kanan did something around the half of him that was still in her, bit her lip and _relaxed_ and that sudden slackening from too-tight pressure to something more bearable vaulted Gojyo up over the edge, to the point of no return and beyond. He slid in all the way and Kanan held him there. Her legs steadied him by the hips as he tried to hold still. He came too fast, way sooner than he'd wanted, hit and run, lightning branching from deep in his belly, spilling into the condom in spurts until he was wrung out.  
  
"Shit," said Gojyo. "Shit. Sorry."  
  
He pulled out for real this time, hung his head in shame, waited for the blame to start. He tried to think with his turned-to-mush brains how he would make it up to her.  
  
Instead, Kanan giggled.  
  
Gojyo blinked and looked at her. Kanan wasn't a giggler, and yet…She had that well-fucked look, except for the part where the fucking lasted maybe ten seconds and he was pretty sure she didn't come yet. Just the look of her was enough to get a twitch of interest out of him. He groaned.  
  
"I don't mind," she said. "Really."  
  
She took the used condom off him and pitched it over the side of the bed.  
  
"But I—" said Gojyo. "You—"  
  
Kanan shushed him with one of her fingers against his lips. He turned her hand and kissed her palm. Her eyes just about glowed, looking at him, and Gojyo started to think maybe he didn't do such a bad job after all.  
  
"Watch," said Kanan.  
  
Her fingers trembled, just a bit, as she puts her hand between her legs. Gojyo's eyes glued themselves to her. The finger she'd touched him with was first in line, from his lips to her…  
  
"He always closed his eyes," she said. "Gonou, I mean."  
  
A brief flare of jealousy struck Gojyo. How many times had she done this before with a man dumb enough to look away? He himself couldn't _not_ watch the way her fingers twisted into her body. He couldn't turn away, couldn't not hear the little breaths she gave. In. Out. All in rhythm, all working together. The little breaths grew longer and deeper. He watched her toes start to curl into the sheets. Then he couldn't not touch.  He stroked her face, her breasts, the skin of her hips and thighs, anything he could reach.  
  
"Gojyo," she said.  
  
And that was it. Her eyes rolled back, her fingers frantic, her legs bent at the knee, and small sounds Gojyo could barely hear over the steady pattering of rain on the windows. He thought, absently, that the wind must have changed direction.  
  
Kanan brushed a strand of hair back out of his face,  and Gojyo focused in on her again. She smiled at him and gave the scars on his cheek a pet as she finished tucking the hair behind his ear. That motion made his stomach twist, and he couldn't tell if it was a good feeling or bad.  
  
"I'd almost forgotten," she said.  
  
"Yeah?" said Gojyo. "Forgotten what?"  
  
He let his eyes and his thoughts drift until Kanan answered.  
  
"What this feels like," she said.  
  
One of her hands waved at the bed, at her, at him. Oh. _Oh. That_. And with that understanding also came the knowledge that he was hard again. He glanced down to be sure. He felt Kanan looking, too, and he hoped she likes what she saw. Kanan ran a finger along his dick, still wet from her. Gojyo's skin prickled. _Nice_. She was being downright playful now. He glanced to her face to see if it was only play. Kanan's eyelids were low, but he swore there was an unextinguished interest there.  
  
"D'you want to give it another go?" said Gojyo. "I can do much better, I swear."  
  
And even though he knew he didn't need to (not for her sake, anyway) he turned his best smile on her. If she was going to tell him no, he'd be able to fake not being hurt better if he was already smiling.  
  
"I think—" said Kanan. "I think I'd like that. Very much."  
  
"Got another condom?" Gojyo said. "I know I've got some around here somewhere…"  
  
He thought frantically of the places he normally stashed them, calculated which was closest—top left corner behind the headboard—and how fast he could get them out. Kanan shook her head. Gojyo's heart dropped a little.  
  
"Not this time," she said. "I need to feel you in me."  
  
Gojyo knew a stupid—risky—idea when he heard one, but he couldn't say no to Kanan, just like he couldn't say no to the goofy, fuzzy feeling that was taking root in his chest.  Kanan’d been like a fucking bombshell that exploded all over his life, but she'd brought good things along with the crazy, and the best of those good things might have been right now, Kanan reeling him in...  
  
  
Gojyo started over. He worshiped Kanan with his fingers and tongue like it was the beginning all over again, like he had to coax her to say yes even though she'd already said it and more.  
  
It didn't take long before she arched her hips into his touch, bit her lip to keep from screaming the good kind of scream. At the same time Gojyo held himself back from coming even though he'd sworn he wouldn't be so quick this time. Her insides swallowed him, milked him for all he was worth, silky and tight and as smooth a ride as he could ever hope for. Gojyo suspected, with the one remaining brain cell he had that wasn't focused on the incredible heat of Kanan, that this was as close to nirvana as he was ever going to get, this one moment in the rain, in his brokedown bed and his brokedown life. He saw stars rushing in the dark behind his eyelids.  
  
Kanan whispered his name, and Gojyo forgot everything else.  
  
  
Afterward, they lay in the bed and listened to the rain drumming on the roof. Kanan got up, brought his cigarettes to the bed, lit two, and kept one for herself. They smoked together quietly, her left arm looped around his shoulders, his right hand resting against her thigh. He couldn't stop sneaking looks at her lips on his cigarette. It was crazy sexy, the way her lips curled just so and the way she curved her whole mouth trying to make smoke rings. Gojyo sincerely hoped this won't be the last—the only—time they had sex because he was sure she'd ruined him for other women. As it was, he was going to be spending a lot more time in the shower remembering this.  
  
He snorted and crushed out his cigarette on the battered nightstand. Kanan's pointy elbow nudged him, and so he picked up the butt and dropped it into the sad, cracked ceramic ashtray just inches away. He didn't have a clue what she did with hers, and he didn't care as long as she didn't accidentally set the bed on fire so that they'd have to move. He felt tired in every inch of his body just now, and it‘d take hell or high water before he got up any time soon.    
  
Kanan fell asleep resting against his shoulder. Gojyo let himself touch the ends of her hair. He imagined the kind of future they could have, if they only had the chance. He laughed at the stupid, soppy idea. Kanan turned tighter against him, and he held himself still so that she wouldn't wake.  
  
More than ever, Gojyo hoped that Kanan would choose to stay.  
  
Here.  
  
With him.


	9. Chapter 9

Kanan got up the next morning before Gojyo did. He was still tired and so he didn't do more than crack his eyelids when he felt the bed move. He pretended to be asleep when she kissed the scars on his cheek. Inside, Gojyo felt like celebrating.

He felt like a man in love. At least, he guessed this was what a man in love felt like, because he'd never thought he was in love before. He kept saying that word to himself as he lay in the bed and the warmth of Kanan's body faded from the sheets. Love? It was ridiculous sentimental crap to feel like last night's rain had washed all the bad stuff away and that the sun was shining just because of the fucking fantastic sex.

 

Gojyo didn't actually get up until he smelled food cooking, which meant Gojyo was guaranteed to have the shower to himself. Kanan didn't do anything before she washed and dressed in the morning. Not that he'd've minded sharing, exactly, but he didn't want to push his luck with her. He wanted to just coast on the good vibes last night had left behind and pretend that the whole world had changed, when really it was just him and maybe...maybe her too.

Gojyo breezed into the kitchen with his hair still wet, and his heart squeezed extra hard when Kanan handed him a plate of breakfast and she smiled at him.

"Mornin'," he said.

"Good morning, Gojyo," said Kanan. "You slept well?"

He nodded.

"Like a baby," Gojyo said.

The smile left her eyes and he kicked himself.

"Sorry," he said. "I just—"

Kanan shook her head.

"It's my fault," she said. "I need to be less sensitive about this sort of thing."

She took a deep breath, and they both sat at the table with their breakfasts.

"I did too," she said. "Slept like a…like a baby."

Kanan was quiet then, busily scrambling her food around the plate so that there wasn't anything identifiable but colors. Gojyo ate his bit by bit and tried not to watch what she did with hers. He knew she didn't eat more than a bite of it.

"You okay?" he said.

Kanan's green eyes were sharp enough to cut. Gojyo squirmed in his seat a little.

"About last night, I mean," said Gojyo. "You're not—I mean, I didn't hurt you too bad, right?"

What he really wanted to ask was whether she was sorry she'd done it at all, whether she regretted hooking up with a dirty halfbreed like him for her first time out of the gate since she'd been dying in the road. At least, he hoped she hadn't been secretly sleeping with someone else in the meantime, because that would mean he'd have to find that sorry son of a bitch and beat the tar out of him.

Kanan blushed, and it made Gojyo notice a hickey or three along her neck that he didn't remember making.

"I'm fine," she said. "Really."

The straightforwardness Kanan had shown last night was gone, but as far as Gojyo was concerned that meant things were back to normal. Last night was a one-off, a sexy, awesome detour in the long road of his life. Unless, of course, Kanan gave him the go-ahead again. 

Didn't seem real likely right now, not with Kanan acting like he was invisible as she dumped her plate and went right into washing dishes without another word to him. He gulped down the rest of his breakfast, even though that meant he scalded his tongue on the steaming hot coffee, and he dropped his dishes into the sink. And if doing that meant he stood, for a second, close enough to feel the heat of her body and smell the soapy smell rising from the back of her neck, well…that was just how life was. It didn't mean anything, just like it didn't mean anything when he thought she leaned a little closer before he jerked himself away from boxing her in by the sink.

The whole house was too quiet this morning. Gojyo couldn't find something to do that looked productive but wasn't, and he didn't think Kanan wanted to talk just now, even if that talk was only to order him to sweep something or dust down the cobwebs from the corners. It really was a small house, way too small not to bump into someone you were trying to avoid. It took him about ten minutes of pacing the living room, waiting with dread for Kanan to finish whatever it was she was doing in the kitchen, to decide that he couldn't stay in the house today, even if that did make it look like (maybe) he was ditching Kanan the morning after the first—only?—time they had sex. 

Gojyo popped into the kitchen and snagged the perpetual grocery list from the fridge.

"I'm gonna go into town," he said. "Anything else to go on the list?"

He kept his eyes on the list, but he still could see when Kanan shook her head.

"That's everything," she said. "Have a good time."

Shit. She really must not want to even be around him. No offer of the dragon, no cheerfulness, no gentle teasing about poker or the bar. Nothing. Still, Gojyo made himself smile at Kanan.

"See you later," he said.

"Goodbye, Gojyo," said Kanan.

Gojyo walked out the front door and closed it gently behind him. It still felt like he'd just crushed his own heart in the hinges.

 

As soon as he was out of sight of the house, Gojyo slowed down from a purposeful walk to something more like his usual amble. He wasn't in any hurry to get to town, and he was in even less of a hurry to get back to Kanan, for once. He studied the crumpled shopping list, but the words just kind of floated right past him, and he didn't know if it was apples or toilet bowl cleaner that he was supposed to get. The list wasn't very long to begin with: there wasn't really any excuse to not bring back what was on it, even though Gojyo knew Kanan knew they both knew it was just an excuse to get him out of the house. 

He shook his head. It didn't really matter. One flirty look from him, and one of the market vendors—one of the young, pretty ones—would take the list from him and do all the shopping for him. This thought didn't do much to cheer him up, and in fact he was more or less in a funk the entire time it took from his—their?—house to the market that cut through the middle of town.

 

It was actually Mrs. Wen, eighty if she was a day, who took Gojyo's list, and not one of her pretty young granddaughters. Gojyo did his best to tag along behind as she went from stall to stall, but Mrs. Wen waved him away.

"It's perfectly all right, dear," she said. "I know what young love looks like. If you do the shopping like this, you won't bring back a thing on the list."

Her wrinkly old face dimpled as she smiled at him, and even though hearing her take on things kind of made him want to barf with nervousness, he did what she said. 

Gojyo bought a beer for himself and settled in a shady corner and waited. The time crawled by, and he sipped the beer that mostly tasted like the inside of the can and swatted the flies that came to lick the sweat off his face. He wasn't actually hot, but he was sweating all the same. Nerves, he told himself. It was nerves. He didn't want Mrs. Wen to come back, because when the shopping was done, he'd have to go home and see Kanan. He drained the dregs from the can. Not that he didn't want to see Kanan, but he didn't want her to be unhappy when she saw him.

He wandered the marketplace, not really seeing the things he passed by except to note, in a vague way, whether it was something Kanan liked. Peaches. Knives. Fancy sparkly hair things like the ladies at the bar wore. Brand new boots and boots that had seen better days. Greens. Eels. Rocks. Who the hell bought rocks? Somebody did, he guessed, but why they'd do that when there were perfectly good rocks all over the place was beyond him. 

Gojyo spent some time looking for a trash can after that; the beer can in his hand kept slipping, and he would rather just throw it out because what would Kanan say if he came home at this time of day with a beer can? He sighed. She wouldn't say anything, probably, but she'd give him that look, the one that said you can do so much better and he'd feel guilty about it for forever. No. It was better to dispose of the evidence.

It was then that Mrs. Wen caught up with him. She clucked her tongue at the sight of the empty beer he carried.

"Now dear," she said. "What would that nice young lady think? Here, we'll have a cup of tea and give you a little time to compose yourself."

It was clear to Gojyo that Mrs. Wen thought he was drunk. He would've laughed except that would be used as evidence that he was sloshed. So he sat down with Mrs. Wen at the little tea stall and drank tea and listened to her gossip until he thought his brains were going to melt out of his ears from the sheer boredom. He wasn't any more relaxed than he had been earlier, and his ass hurt from the hard bench at the table. Gojyo shifted uncomfortably for the millionth time.

Mrs. Wen's hand patted his, and he jumped backward and almost knocked the bench over.

"You're so nervous," said Mrs. Wen. "Don't be. Just give her a nice smile and the shopping, and everything will be fine."

Gojyo nodded, and Mrs. Wen, with one last concerned look, left him blissfully, gloriously alone. He exhaled loudly and glanced at the pitifully small pair of bags she had left behind. That was it? That was what his entire morning had produced? It didn't seem fair or right, even though fairness and rightness wasn't something he'd ever expected. He felt…cheated. He could've been with Kanan this whole time if he hadn't been so damn scared. 

A dim light went on in his head—if he was scared, what about Kanan? Crap. He'd really screwed up this time. He rested his forehead against the table for a few seconds, feeling the grain of the wood dig into his skin. 

He had to apologize. Gojyo felt it down to the soles of his feet that just saying he was sorry wouldn't be enough. He looked at the marketplace. A present. Women liked presents and Kanan, though weird, was still a woman. He'd find the perfect gift for her, and then, then she would have to know how he felt, right?

"There's got to be something here for her," Gojyo said.

He got up from the table, grabbed his bags, and started to walk. 

 

Gojyo hurried home to surprise Kanan with a couple things he'd seen in town and thought she'd like—a ribbon to keep the hair out of her face—he'd seen her struggling with it lately, pushing it back out of her face and back angain ten seconds later when it fell into her face in the same spot—and a new sharpening stone for the kitchen knives, and, just for fun, a couple of old, dusty books that could be boring but maybe not. They were poetry, he could tell, but about what, he didn't know. Between the age of the book and the complicated characters, Gojyo could only make out about two words per line. His insides did complicated little jigs when he tried to imagine how Kanan might like what he'd brought.

Gojyo opened the front door of the house and froze at the hot-metal smell of blood that hung in the air. Something was wrong. He dropped the shopping in the doorway and, two seconds later, almost fell when he tried to step over it.

"Kanan?" he said. "Kanan!"

She wasn't in the living room or in the kitchen. His heart drummed in his ears. He strode into the bedroom. Nothing. A flash of movement caught his eye, in the doorway that led from bedroom to bath. The door was wide open. Kanan sat on the toilet, and even at this distance Gojyo could see she'd been crying.

"In here," Kanan said. "I'm okay."

She drew a shaky breath and dissolved into ragged sobs.

Gojyo went closer. She hadn't been attacked, hadn't stabbed herself again. A light bulb went on in his head, and he tried not to look at her underwear, around her ankles, spotted with blood. Oh. He could undertand, kind of, why she was crying, but he couldn't tell if it was because she was happy or sad.

It wasn't like he'd never been around a woman during that time of the month. Gojyo shied away from thoughts of his step-mom. There'd been girls he'd gone home with who'd spontaneously started theirs. He'd always chalked it up to chance or blind bad luck on his part, because he refused to believe that his water-youkai genes had anything to do with it. That was crazy talk.

"Hey," he said.

Kanan looked up.

"Hey yourself," she said. "I just…wasn't expecting this."

Though she gestured at herself, Gojyo tried not to follow her hands with his eyes. 

"Want a washcloth?" he said.

It was like he was in a horror movie: up close, Kanan was sweaty and shock-y, the smell of blood overpowered the air, and everywhere he looked—the floor, the bed, Kanan's legs—were livid smears of blood.

"Please," said Kanan.

He got a washcloth off the shelf and ran a little warm tap water on it. She took it from his hand and he turned his head out of politeness while she started cleaning up. He stood there, feeling awkward and useless until he couldn't do it—do nothing—any more.

Gojyo brought her clean clothes, and he changed the sheets on the bed and used the old ones to mop up the floor while he was at it and Kanan did her thing with the bathroom door still wide open. Gojyo sat at the foot of the bed and waited.

At last, Kanan came out of the bathroom, looking freshly scrubbed, if pale, in the pajamas he'd brought. Gojyo avoided looking at her directly.

"D'you need me to get you anything?" he said.

In his experience, women liked sweets and sad movies and painkillers. And tampons. Pads. Whatever. He looked up like she would explode if he did it too fast or too obviously.

Kanan shook her head.

"No thank you," she said. "I have everything I need."

He wondered where she'd hidden her…lady supplies. It was a small bathroom. Gojyo decided he didn't really want to know. He was not-so-secretly relieved he wasn't going to have to make a run into town for her. He would've done it, but he was just as happy not to have to.

"Okay," he said.

Kanan pulled back the covers and got into the bed. He could feel her staring expectantly at his back, and he sighed. Gojyo stripped down to his underwear and slid into his side of the bed. He stayed at the far edge.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," she said.

He waved a hand at Kanan. She grabbed it and dragged his arm toward her.

"You didn't," he said. "Not really. 'S'not your fault."

He was sure she could feel how hard his heart was working right through his skin, finally coming down off the adrenaline that'd hit when he'd opened the front door.

"Shit," he said. "I brought you some stuff from town."

He tried to sit up, but she dragged him down again.

"Stay," she said. "Just for a little while."

He looked over at her. Her eyes were half-closed. She looked tired and pale, but at least the scent of blood was starting to fade. Kanan yawned.

"All right," said Gojyo. "I'll stay. And later, we'll have some dinner, and I'll show you…"

Kanan was out like a light, before he even finished his sentence. Gojyo felt a cold knot in his stomach loosen. 

Even while she slept, she clung to his hand. She'd never know he hung onto her just as hard.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it! This is the end of this story.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> .

After Kanan stopped bleeding that first time, things got so normal, so domestic, that it made Gojyo want to laugh. Of all the things he'd expected in his life, this wasn't it. It was like he'd gone back in time or maybe to a different universe and was living the sort of life his stepmom had always aspired to: husband and wife and the perfect little house. Not that he and Kanan were married. Hell no. He knew how things went rotten if you got married, and he wanted to avoid rocking the boat. He was…kind of happy the way things were.

Kanan seemed happy too. Sure, it was still "Gonou" this and "Gonou" that, but it didn't bother Gojyo so much any more. It was clear to him that he was nothing like Gonou, except for liking Kanan, and Gojyo couldn't fault him for that. Kanan was easy to like.

He couldn't believe his luck in finding someone like her. She didn't hesitate with him, the way she did with everyone else. It made Gojyo feel…special, somehow. And Gojyo was able to really be himself with her, not that he'd kept much back anyway. He trusted her. She listened when he wanted to talk, and she didn't push him when he just wanted to sit and be.

Things were as close to perfect as Gojyo had ever had.

 

Gojyo almost wasn't surprised when Sanzo showed up one day, just before dinner, and told them to abandon all hope because they, Sanzo, Goku, Gojyo, and Kanan, would be going west. The whole country was on edge; the rumors of youkai terror weren't just rumors anymore, especially when you went west, and someone had to go figure it out. Gojyo wondered who Sanzo had pissed off to get stuck with the job. Gojyo wondered who _he_ had pissed off to get stuck going with Sanzo.

Once Sanzo was gone, and Kanan had plated up the rice and chicken and vegetables—she was always making him eat vegetables—and put out a beer for him and some plum wine for her, she and Gojyo talked it over.

“I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen,” Kanan said. "I have a bag all ready to go."

It made Gojyo’s heart flop around in his chest to think that she was planning on leaving all this time. What if—what if she didn’t want to come back?

"I just had a feeling," she said. "The way the monks at the temple whispered made me wonder…"

Gojyo pretended to eat some dinner. It wasn’t him, he told himself. It wasn’t even her. He could almost breathe normally again.

"Sanzo said there might not even be any roads where we’re going," Gojyo said. "What the hell's that supposed to mean? Cryptic bastard."

Kanan smiled and, though Gojyo had seen her do it before, it made him have that goofy, funny feeling in his chest. At the same time, his guts squeezed. How could you feel two totally different things at the same time and not get torn apart? Gojyo was sure he was going to barf with the struggle. 

"Sanzo told me the same thing," Kanan said. "But we'll manage, won't we?"

She smiled at him, and Gojyo smiled back. Maybe the good feeling had only gotten stronger and he had never stopped feeling it when it had started…whenever that was.

"Yeah," he said. "We've done it this long, we can do it some more."

He pushed the food around on his plate and watched Kanan. He loved how she smiled at him. He loved that she said ‘we.’ It made his stomach calm down, to hear her talk about their plans, like she wasn’t going to leave without him.

Also, watching her swallow her food made Gojyo remember, viscerally, last week's surprise blowjob. He felt his face getting hot. Sex with Kanan was unpredictable, infrequent, and, in some ways, the best he'd ever had. He loved her sudden urges and surprises, loved her willingness to tempt him into staying home all day so they could screw all over the house until someone pulled a muscle or collapsed from exhaustion. He loved how Kanan yanked his hair when she was hot to go, and how she stroked it back when they were sweating afterward.

Gojyo wondered if he could get away with adjusting himself under the table, or if she’d catch him at it. The thought made him hotter.

He cleared his throat.

"So, uh, are we supposed to walk all the way west?" he said. "What with there being no roads and all."

Kanan downright giggled at him. He’d never heard her do that before. He kind of liked it, though.

"Sanzo wants us to drive," she said. "I hope he realizes I'm the one at the wheel."

Gojyo snorted. He'd like to see anyone else try to get in the driver's seat. The one time he'd done it, while Kanan was in the bath, the jeep had shot flame at him through the vents. _All_ the vents, including the ones that were aimed in the general direction of his crotch. Gojyo had smelled of singed hair for a week, and Kanan had laughed at him and made him trim his own bangs.

It entertained Gojyo to think of Sanzo hopping around, putting out fires on his robes.

"I bet his holiness tries to get you to do all the laundry and cooking," said Gojyo.

Because you're a girl went unsaid. He took a long pull of his beer. Kanan didn't even bat an eye.

"Well we can't have you doing it," said Kanan. "We'd be naked and starving by the end of the week."

Gojyo laughed so hard the beer went up the back of his nose. He hacked and coughed and suffered through a lot of fizz in his sinuses. When he could breathe again, everything tasted and smelled like beer.

"I wonder how dangerous it will be," said Kanan. "If it gets worse as we go further west…"

"You can take care of yourself," said Gojyo.

Kanan looked sideways at him and nodded.

"Thank you," she said. "However, it would be prudent for me to have a weapon, don't you think?"

Gojyo thought of the umbrella and got a little harder. Down boy.

"Sure," he said. "Whatcha thinking about?"

Kanan pushed her plate aside. She leaned on the table with both elbows. He felt a slight breeze around his ankles; she was swinging her legs, too. It reminded him of that day in the rain, laughing all the way home.

"I don't know," said Kanan. "I've always made do, before, though I haven't had much need. If things are as bad as we've heard, I don't want to be stuck with anything ineffective."

The way she smiled told Gojyo that she was thinking about the umbrella, too.

“There’s always guns,” said Gojyo. “Of course then you’d be competing with Sanzo, and I’m not sure he’d like it if yours was bigger than his.”

Gojyo wiggled his eyebrows at her. She laughed behind a hand.

“Gojyo, really,” said Kanan. “Penis jokes?”

“Well it’s true!” said Gojyo. “You can’t tell me that he isn’t overcompensating. I mean, come on, d’you know how hard it is to find somewhere that sells bullets?”

Gojyo made a grand gesture and sent his dinner plate flying. Dammit.

Kanan collapsed, laughing. Gojyo could feel it vibrating through the table. He laughed too and laid his head down next to hers. He studied her, looking for something, though he wasn’t sure what. Rejection? Love? Not that he loved her. He loved the things she did, the things she said, the things they shared, but he didn't love _her_. (He thought.) Something told Gojyo that they were more than friends—way more than friends—but he didn’t know if she thought of him like he worried he might think about her.

Gojyo didn’t find any clues in Kanan’s face, but it could just be that he didn’t know what he was looking for. He wouldn’t know a stable relationship if it bit him on the ass. And love? Hah. He just knew that he liked her, and that he didn’t want her to go away and never come back, or for her to leave after they did whatever it was Sanzo had been sent to do. He wanted them to get old and wrinkly together, if they were lucky enough not to get killed out west.

"Wanna get married?" said Gojyo. "After we get back, I mean."

The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. Kanan laughed, and Gojyo blushed, horrified. Shit, why’d he say that? ( _Because he wanted them to stay together_.)

Kanan didn't look offended, but that didn't mean she wasn't.

"Save the world and get the girl?" she said.

He blushed a little more. Kanan was the kind of girl a guy married, wasn’t she? Come on. She was perfect for him, perfect in general, and he couldn’t imagine no one else ever seeing it. Not that being married was something he expected or even thought he wanted, except Kanan was…well…she made Gojyo think that _she_ wanted to be married, someday. (Crap, he hoped she didn’t go and marry some other guy, because then Gojyo might have to murder him and make it look like an accident.)

Kanan poked him on the nose and he jerked his head back.

“Gojyo?” said Kanan. “Are you all right? You must have been a thousand miles away.”

He focused on her again and tried to smile.

"Something like that," he said. "I just…don't wanna come back and be alone, you know?"

Her eyes softened. This close, a man could drown in the green of her eyes. Gojyo tried to convince himself he wasn’t going all soft and mushy, but it was a half-hearted argument.

"I know exactly what you mean," she said. "But…I'd make a terrible wife."

Kanan got up then and cleared away the dinner. Gojyo's heart sank a little.

"Oh," he said.

Kanan's head popped out of the kitchen.

"Did you say something, Gojyo?" she said.

"Nah," said Gojyo.

"If you wouldn't mind, then," said Kanan.

She pointed at the food spilled across the floor.

"Sure," said Gojyo. "No problem."

Kanan smiled. It was the same smile she always had, and Gojyo couldn't tell what she was thinking behind it.

"Thank you, Gojyo," she said.

Gojyo focused on sweeping up the dinner he hadn't eaten and tried to sweep away his disappointment as well. He smeared rice across most of the living room floor and smoked his way through half a pack of cigarettes before he realized it wasn't going to work.

He went out on the porch, finished smoking the pack, and watched the smoke curling up to the stars like it was incense for the gods he didn't believe in.

 

Later, after they'd been lying in bed for long enough for Kanan to have fallen asleep with her arm on his chest and her breath whistling across his shoulder, and the crickets were chirping, and the house was creaking like it always did at night, Gojyo realized something very, very important.

_Kanan hadn’t said no_. And Kanan was very, very good at telling Gojyo no. She did it all the time—no, Gojyo, don’t smoke in here. No, Gojyo, go do that somewhere else. No, Gojyo, we are not buying the bar. No chocolate syrup in the bed, no, don’t try to fix the backed-up sink. No, no, no.

_She hadn’t said no_.

Even if she hadn’t said no because she thought he wasn’t being serious, Gojyo figured he'd have the whole trip there and back to convince her. They'd watch each other's backs and come home together, and then…then…

He smiled and slid his arm around Kanan’s waist. She shifted against him, and he celebrated in the feel of it. Gojyo could convince her, eventually, that he could be good for her.

He inhaled, deep, and smelled Kanan. Gojyo wondered if she could smell him as she slept.

The plan became a mantra in his head--go out west, save the world (if you believed Sanzo), come back east, and then everything else, side-by-side with Kanan.

Gojyo closed his eyes at last, settling his head into the pillows.

 

He could work with that.


End file.
